Twenty‐First‐Century Counseling Theory Development in Relation to Definitions of Free Will and Determinism

This article is a continuation of Wilks's ( 2003 ) review of the development of counseling theory in relation to definitions of free will and determinism. The original review showed that theoretical synthesis was in part achieved when causal events inherent in absolute determinism were incorporated into a soft self‐determinist process. This review traces three 21st‐century challenges to self‐determinism and provides evidence supporting the inclusion of both self‐determinism and indeterminate free will in a single but asymmetrical causal model.     

Subtasks affecting step-length asymmetry in post-stroke hemiparetic walking

This study was performed to investigate whether components from trunk progression (TP) and step length were related to step length asymmetry in walking in patients with hemiparesis. Gait analysis was performed for participants with hemiparesis and healthy controls. The distance between the pelvis and foot in the anterior-posterior axis was calculated at initial-contact. Step length was partitioned into anterior foot placement (AFP) and posterior foot placement (PFP). TP was partitioned into anterior trunk progression (ATP) and posterior trunk progression (PTP). The TP pattern and step length pattern were defined to represent intra-TP and intra-step spatial balance, respectively. Of 29 participants with hemiparesis, nine participants showed longer paretic step length, eight participants showed symmetric step length, and 12 participants showed shorter paretic step length. For the hemiparesis group, linear regression analysis showed that ATP asymmetry, AFP asymmetry, and TP patterns had significant predictability regarding step length asymmetry. Prolonged paretic ATP and shortened paretic AFP was the predominant pattern in the hemiparesis group, even in participants with symmetric step length. However, some participants showed same direction of ATP and AFP asymmetry. These findings indicate the following: (1) ATP asymmetries should be observed to determine individual characteristics of step length asymmetry, and (2) TP patterns can provide complementary information for non-paretic limb compensation.     

Perspective taking in referring to objects behind versus in front of an observer: Frames of reference,intraindividual consistency,and response latencies

Speakers of English and German typically adopt the reflection variant of the relative frame of reference (FoR) in order to describe how nonoriented objects that are located in front of them are related to one another. Little is known, however, about how they proceed in dorsal settings, with objects located in their back. In this article, we explore the turn hypothesis, which assumes a (mental) 180° turn of the observer to face the objects, converting the dorsal into a frontal situation, so that the preferred FoR variant for frontal settings can be applied. To elicit spatial references, we used photographs that showed an observer and two objects either in the observer's visual field (frontal condition) or in the observer's back (dorsal condition). The observer was looking either in the same direction as the referencing individual (aligned perspectives) or in the opposite direction (vis-à-vis perspective). Data from two experiments show that while participants do adopt the observer's perspective, their references in dorsal settings are incompatible with the turn hypothesis. Analyses of response latencies indicate additional cognitive costs for establishing a FoR for the very first item in the dorsal condition as compared to the frontal condition, but fast adaption for subsequent items, and high intraindividual consistency in FoR choice in both conditions. Maintaining the assumption that references in dorsal settings should be compatible with the variant of the relative FoR adopted in frontal settings, participants’ references can be explained by assuming a backward projection that gets by without a (mental) turn of the observer.     

Obstacle Avoidance Increases Asymmetry of Crossing Step in Individuals With Parkinson's Disease and Neurologically Healthy Individuals

The authors' aim was to investigate gait asymmetry of crossing step during obstacle avoidance while walking in people with Parkinson's disease (PD) under and without the effects of dopaminergic medication. Thirteen individuals with PD and 13 neurologically healthy individuals performed 5 trials of unobstructed gait and 10 trials of obstacle crossing during gait (5 trials with each leg) and spatiotemporal parameters were analyzed. Obstacle crossing increased step duration of the crossing step for the most-affected or nondominant limb compared to the crossing step with the least-affected or dominant limb. Individuals with PD without the effects of medication increased step duration for the step with the least-affected limb compared to the step with the most-affected limb during obstacle crossing.     

Pure word deafness and the bilateral processing of the speech code

The analysis of pure word deafness (PWD) suggests that speech perception, construed as the integration of acoustic information to yield representations that enter into the linguistic computational system, (i) is separable in a modular sense from other aspects of auditory cognition and (ii) is mediated by the posterior superior temporal cortex in both hemispheres. PWD data are consistent with neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence in a manner that suggests that the speech code is analyzed bilaterally. The typical lateralization associated with language processing is a property of the computational system that acts beyond the analysis of the input signal. The hypothesis of the bilateral mediation of the speech code does not imply that both sides execute the same computation. It is proposed that the speech signal is asymmetrically analyzed in the time domain, with left‐hemisphere mechanisms preferentially extracting information over shorter (25–50 ms) temporal integration windows and right mechanisms over longer (150–250 ms) windows.     

Do Big Five personality traits associated with self-control influence the regulation of anger and aggression?

This study examined whether Big Five personality traits associated with the ability to exhibit self-control would moderate the anger–aggression link. A total of 126 participants (63 women) completed personality measures. In a separate experimental session, participants wrote an essay and then received either positive or negative feedback from a fictitious participant. Participants were given the opportunity to aggress against the supposed other person. Baseline and post-experimental emotions were assessed. EEG was recorded to measure activity in midfrontal, lateral-frontal, and parietal areas. Results replicated previous findings that anger is associated with left relative to right prefrontal asymmetry and aggression. Conscientiousness was negatively associated with anger and relative left prefrontal asymmetry. Conscientiousness also moderated the link between anger and aggression. Agreeableness was positively associated with anger, but only when levels of conscientiousness were low.     

A theory of the visual system biology underlying development of spatial frequency lateralization

The spatial frequency hypothesis contends that performance differences between the hemispheres on various visuospatial tasks are attributable to lateralized processing of the spatial frequency content of visual stimuli. Hellige has proposed that such lateralization could arise during infant development from the earlier maturation of the right hemisphere combined with the increasing sensitivity of the visual system to high spatial frequencies. This proposal is intuitively appealing but lacks an explicit theory with respect to the underlying visual system biology. In this paper, we develop such a theory based on knowledge of visual system processing and development. We then translate our theory into a computational model that serves as the basis for a series of development simulations. We find that the simulations produce spatial frequency lateralization effects consistent with those observed empirically. We relate the nature of the neural asymmetry implied by our theory to empirical findings on visual pathway bias and the relative spatial frequency lateralization effect.     

The integration of cognition and emotion during infancy and early childhood: regulatory processes associated with the development of working memory

This study was an attempt to integrate cognitive development (i.e., cognitive control) and emotional development (i.e., emotion regulation) in the first years of life. The construct of temperament was used to unify cognition and emotion because of its focus on attentional and regulatory behaviors. Children were seen at 8 months and 412-years of age in a study designed to examine the correlates of working memory development. Frontal brain electrical activity and temperament predicted working memory performance at 8 months. Similarly, frontal brain electrical activity, temperament, and language predicted working memory at age 412-years. Temperament in early childhood mediated the relation between infant temperament and early childhood working memory performance. These associated temperament characteristics highlight the value of early-learned regulatory and attentional behaviors and the impact of these early skills on later development.     

Attitude generalization: Similarity, valence, and extremity

Attitude generalization was explored as a function of object similarity and attitude valence and extremity. Participants in a computer game formed attitudes toward positive and negative, mild or extreme stimuli. How well these attitudes generalized to similar, novel stimuli was then examined. Visual similarity to game targets affected categorization of novel stimuli, such that greater resemblance resulted in more similar classification. However, generalization varied by valence and extremity. Negative attitudes generalized more than positive attitudes, requiring less resemblance for a novel target to be classified as negative. This pattern was more obvious with extreme attitudes than mild attitudes. That is, extreme attitudes were more influential and given more weight than mild attitudes. Also, specific conditions were identified under which positive attitudes proved more influential than negative attitudes.     

视觉搜索中空间不对称性的眼动研究

采用视觉搜索任务对33名大学生在不同视野中目标搜索过程的眼睛运动进行记录,以探讨不同视野位置的视觉搜索的差异性。研究结果表明,视觉搜索存在明显的空间不对称性,它主要体现在左右视野之间的差异上,具体表现在搜索反应时、平均注视时间以及眼睛跳动等方面。视觉搜索中存在很强的策略,其中主要为水平搜索或垂直搜索,因此,长期的练习和习惯也将影响视觉搜索过程。